Monday, September 16, 2013

Clown class time, yay. As much as it saps my energy it is worth it... a new perspective on life. At the end of the day it is a blur though, so I will probably forget a lot of what we actually do - I think it is just supposed to become a part of me though.

I start off the day by moving to a different table than Arron. I managed to guess correctly that our tables will be the group for the next task, and I want to branch out to other people. If I am supposed to be out of my comfort zone then having a familiar face around doesn't seem like the way to do it.

Rip the first journal entry out of your journal. Eek! Put it, along with the 3 other people at your table, n the whiteboard (don't put the other people on the whiteboard, that would be silly, each of us put our freshly torn out journal entry on the board). Write the thing that is most important to you in a collaboration on the board. You have 10 minutes. Well 10 minutes seems like a lot of time, so we read each others, ask questions. 5 minutes left... ok time to pick something and write it: "Have Fun" appears on the board. More instructions: if someone walked to the board and read it would they know how to interact with you? Probably not, expand on my idea with a few more words. Everyone done? (we are) Do people want 2 more minutes? (not really). Ok two more minutes. (help out each other with fleshing our ideas a bit more). Travel around the room and read each others. We all come to the conculsion that we would not know how to interact with each other. For example what if your rule is "treat others like you wish to be treated"... what if you like to treat yourself horribly?

New instructions: Be specific abut how your idea of a perfect collaboration. I write a lot, not much of which actually has to do about having fun. I write so much I get to go last as we go around the room... even my very specific version has holes in it. Communication is hard :-) We also learn a lesson in following directions. My group followed directions (yay us!).

Next we take a break and I talk to Haig, another student. We get back to class and we are in a big circle. We pass a clap (not "the" clap, much laughter) around the circle.One person claps and then the next etc... all the way around the circle.Now to it faster. Now faster. Do the same thing with one of those big balls you exercise with. Find new ways to pass if faster. Next up we can pass it to anyone, not just the person beside us. We do the same with claps too.

Last, but not least. a very important thing for clowns (apparently) entering a room. I get to go first... at least I will have it done with :-) Enter the room and make eye contact with everyone. I do it, and then get told how I could do it better. We all do it and we sort of fit into three categories: those that are mechanical, those that are superficial, and those that are somewhat natural but overdo it. We will do this more in the course, we also get our own video so we can see it. I never knew there was so much going on when you enter a room. The idea of presence again.

After that have a meeting with the project group to approve of the presentation slides, we have comments, and class, and other meetings. Maria cleans it up along with the help of Damon and Joey. I run off to the visual story meeting. Brad is now in our group (had some strange Facebook issue where he could friend me but I could not friend him). We come up with a story plan, just need the story idea specifics. We are going to humanize an iPad.

Last, but not least, meet with my favourite advisor, Kim. We talk about what I want out of the program, any concerns etc... and they we compare stories of the stupid things we managed to do as teenagers that caused us to get hurt. She wins, I only broke my tailbone, and I did that at 41.

And finally, I am getting good at this - done writing this on the train :-) Publishing NOW.